Project: Aldebaran
Salem on the research and media ship
The "Aldebaran" is a research and media ship with its home port of Hamburg. It was originally converted into a mobile radio/TV station by Frank Schweikert, a German journalist and environmental activist. Since 1992, the Aldebaran has been travelling around the world, mostly on behalf of the Deutsche Meeresstiftung.
For many years now, the ship has been used primarily for marine and aquatic research. The Aldebaran team led by Frank Schweikert also has the ambition and uses every opportunity to conduct research (research ship) and to communicate the results as widely as possible (media ship) in order to provide as detailed information as possible about problems, changes and the current status of the world's oceans, seas and lakes.
Nina Peters
Head of International Office
Teacher: Biology
Tel. +49 7553 919-305
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Our project weeks with the Aldebaran
In cooperation with the Deutsche Meeresstiftung and with the help of an Altsalemerin (Alumni), the idea was born to bring together the Aldebaran's research offer and the academic aspirations of Schule Schloss Salem in order to jointly organise a project week. Several pupils from all age groups were to spend a week on the ship together with the Aldebaran team, carrying out various experiments and tests.
Due to contact restrictions in the planned month of May 2020, we rescheduled the planned project week by one year, whereupon the crew of the Aldebaran offered us a digital project week as an alternative at short notice. Thus we quickly became a pilot school for a long planned digital project of the Aldebaran, which was a great alternative to the daily online lessons for our students and a good opportunity for the crew to test the technology on board in a live broadcast.
From 11 to 15 May 2020, various experiments, presentations and explanatory videos were streamed live from the ship on Lake Constance to the classrooms in Salem, enriched with existing material to provide an even greater variety of knowledge.
Topics of the project week included plastics & biodiversity, species diversity in Lake Constance, Lake Constance as an ecosystem with microorganisms & plankton, invasive species and their influence on Lake Constance and drinking water abstraction, the eutrophication of Lake Constance including a status on the general health of Lake Constance, how it was in the past and what the future looks like with regard to water temperature and the nitrate/phosphate balance.
This live stream took place on 11 May 2020:
